


Sum of his parts

by Mangerine



Category: World Trigger
Genre: Autistic!Yuma, Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUMAAAA, I can't believe I'm the 100th fic for this fandom, M/M, Mutual Pining, Wingman!Chika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7521388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Yuma rates the days, hypothesizes about friends, calculates his probabilities - but didn't count on love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sum of his parts

It takes a week to set in. Seven days exactly.

Shock doesn’t set in seconds after his hair turns ash-white. He simply stands and swings his daggers. His feet move quickly, just as before –

(before what? Before he died? Before dad-).

He knew he was good. He knew he was fast. His agility has never failed him before.

(Before

w

h

a

t

?

)

 

The citadel is safe by nightfall. If only he’d waited three more hours.

 

After that, life stops being measured. The days are no longer split cleanly like blunt knives into army rations. The thirds of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner lose their appeal to his trion body and he scarcely remembers to eat anymore. He lies in bed when he thinks he should - that is, when Replica starts hovering a little too close - and presses his right thumb where his left pulse should be, hoping.

On the fourth day since his death, he’s sparring with a soldier nearly twice his age when he feels the point of a sword puncture his left lung. It withdraws and the soldier panics, running into the distance for aid. The medic and the soldier return just in time to see a swath of trion leak out his body and patch itself.

“I’m fine,” he hears himself say.

The soldier takes his time to gape.

“I’m so sorry. I miscalculated and I-“

Yuma doesn’t stop listening. Even as his very being is filled with a nauseating, thick ooze of realization, he does not stop listening. He cannot. His mind sticks the last puzzle piece to complete a grotesque picture.

_The too-long glances at the towering figure of his father. Covert whispering in the barracks, of a spouseless soldier, unrivaled in the battlefield and the bedroom alike. The lonely nights his father spent even as the others beckoned him with alcohol and other pleasures. His large hands soldering spider webs of wires together, fine-tuning the mechanics of a trion soldier for his slumbering son instead. The son that would cause his premature death when morning came._

This was no miscalculation. Yuma thinks, and his newfound side effect confirms. It was a crime of passion, bred from a stagnated swamp of delusion, of course, but it was no miscalculation. Yuma ponders, numb as the medic pulls him away from his foiled murderer.

_Did he think that my father would love him back? Maybe he – how long has he – been waiting to remove me from the equation? Like a denominator you could multiply away. Excessive. Dad had saved him again, giving him this undead shell, by subtracting himself and substituting me. But wait; if Dad hadn’t died maybe I wouldn’t have been targeted in misguided revenge? So by saving me, did he put me in more danger? Did he stand to lose more by dying?_

_Do I?_

 

In an ouroboros of mental sums, none of which concerning numbers, Yuma held Replica close and whispered,

“What a boring liar that soldier was, Replica”

It takes a week to set in, and then the hope just stops. Seven days exactly.

 

 

 

Then two months, four weeks and eight days later, in the wake of a bloodbath, hope returns with a faded memory.

_“Border…was it?”_

x

Miadyn is cold.

“Not Miadyn,” Replica corrects gently, poking out from his shirt collar “You’re going to have to blend in from now on. Do be careful to hide your Calvarian accent. It’s – “

“Earth” Yuma says slowly, “Earth, East Asia, Japan, Mikadō City”

“Third Mikadō City Junior High School” Replica completes. “Remember to look both ways this time”.

x

Mikumo Osamu, like Earth, is a foreign concept. A bruise had bloomed where he was kicked in his cheek earlier by the classroom bully. Still, it couldn’t have hurt that much, considering the way he continued to rattle on, only partly coherent in his frenzy.

“– even after I **_told_** you not to cause a scene! And another thing, no normal student carries that much cash on them! What’s the economy even **_like_** over ther- no, that’s beside the point. Digressing. **_Look_** , my mum gives me about 20000¥ a month and I budget it myself ok? I don’t know how much you’ll spend since you have to replace that uniform now. And about that-“

“People on this side sure are strange”

“…Ok, tell me where I lost you and we’ll start from there”

“No, no, I was listening.”

And he was. The general gist of it, according to his new Earth-friend, was that _the individual should simply not do what is unjust, and meting out justice in the form of self –defense can be a  form of injustice as well_ , which to Yuma, frankly sounded like a load of bullshi-

“…alright? And my math isn’t the best but if you have any questions we can always ask the teacher after class together-“

Maybe Osamu was an outlier, a stray cross in an otherwise positively linear regression line. An organization like Border existed here, after all, a whole team of Earthlings who weren’t willing to just lie down and die at the thought of being attacked by another dimension. He’d ask his father about it if everything with this Mogami person at Border went well.

“Oh I’m fine at math; it’s one of the things that isn’t too different between Earth and the Neighbourhood. It’s just that your language is…tricky”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it after a while- oh, I’m turning here. Please go straight home. If the police get involved in anything you start, I won’t be able to help”

 “Hm? Who’s this ‘police’ person?”

“…I’ll leave him to you then, Mr Replica”

“Roger, take care, Osamu”

As the stars blinked lazily overhead, a small part of Yuma sneered.

 “If things go well,” he thought, “I wouldn’t ‘get the hang’ of this language. I wouldn’t have to. I’ll just find a way to get dad back, and we’d return to where we came from-

“And Kuga! Remember to look both ways this time!”

-and I wouldn’t have to understand you people, especially not ones like you, Mikumo Osamu.”

x

Things don’t go well. Dad isn’t coming back.

 

It’s been four years, three months, a week, four days, ten hours thirty minutes and five seconds since he died and it’s been exactly fouryearsthreemonthsaweekfourdaystenhoursthirtyminutesandfiveseconds _too **fucking long**_ to be alive. He’s a graph that’s gone beyond the boundaries of its axes and he feels every fiber of it. What now?

**_What now?_ **

Jin left the roof for the warmth of Tamakoma HQ (half a minute ago), and Replica was off somewhere else, a rare enough thing.

 Yuma looks down at the pitch black lake around HQ, and wonders how the water would feel gushing into his lungs. It’s not like he’d die from it, so he swings his legs over the ledge and sits, watchful.

He’d joked about it to Replica once, about how they were the same now, just trion soldiers with binary code and trion in their veins instead of blood. Replica hovered much nearer after that.

The waves frothed below and he wondered.

Maybe it’d feel like the blood he lost

four years

three months

a wee-

“Kuga, can we talk?”

x

Things get better. He makes more Earth friends: Classmates, Border agents, a mentor, a whole faction and a capybara that he calls his allies. He’s got a real team now too. Chika takes the initiative to ask him for weekend matches, just so she reacts a little faster on the battlefield. Saturdays are spent dodging bullets and Sundays are spent at small cafes and foodcarts, sampling the traditional fare Japan has to offer. Those nights, Yuma goes home with his heart and belly full.

Weekdays pass by with Osamu walking him through homework after school and Border patrols. One day, Yuma’s Literature test is returned with a cheerful doodle at the top with a cursive “Good progress!” on the top right corner, much to his surprise. Osamu places his favourite croquette in Yuma’s lunchbox on the roof afterwards, with a soft “Good job” and a smile.

Replica doesn’t hover as much anymore. Some days, he leaves Yuma to his devices in school as he surveys Mikado City and its inhabitants, recording information dutifully as dad once did.

He notices it within himself too. Small increments of hope and strength fill his existence. He fishes at Tamakoma without wanting to sink into the murky depths. (Shiori assures him it’s not that deep a plunge anyway; Yotaro’s allowed to go for a dip in the summer as long as someone watches him.)

When he tells Osamu he wants to improve his Japanese, his green eyes twinkle and he graciously obliges. They spend the afternoon at an old, crammed, bookshop that smells like ink and crisp pages. Osamu knows the old proprietor by name and the narrow shelves by heart. Together, they pore over assessment books and basic Kanji drills. They stay that way, pressed together in the aisles, jostled closer and closer by the occasional shopper pushing past, until Osamu points out that it was nearly time for dinner.

  
  


Yuma didn’t count the hours pass.

They meander to the cashier and Yuma passes the old owner a note that looked big enough to cover his purchases. He supposes it is, with the disgruntled way the cashier sighs and starts digging through the register for his change. Osamu is noticeably silent about Yuma’s lingering confusion with Japan’s currency, and when he turns, he notices Osamu’s eyes fixed on a small paperback. It’s nondescript, a white dust jacket with a black title in a default font. Squinting just a little, Yuma notices pink flowers, so faded they were almost white, glazed across the cover.

Ah, a romance novel.

“Do you want to get that as well?” Yuma asks, just as his change is handed back to him. He hears an aggravated sigh from the store owner, but opts to ignore it. “I’ll get it; you really helped me out today”.

“Ah, no, it’s, that’s, my mother, she follows that series, I was wondering if I should get it for her”

 

….it’s not _entirely_ a lie.

 

“You should,” Kuga nudged

“I should,” Osamu replied, tips of his ears faintly red as he pulled a wrapped copy from the shelf.

That weekend, Osamu and Chika spring a surprise visit at his apartment, armed with markers and post-its. The day is spent carefully writing out the names of everyday objects onto the colourful squares and gingerly sticking them on the corresponding item. By the time Osamu and Chika bid their farewells, Yuma is surrounded by a rainbow of small squares, each labeled with words such as “Microwave”, “Television” and “Questionable Mold Stains” (He’d have to talk to the landlord about that).

“This way,” Osamu says as they prepared to leave, “you can start memorizing common nouns without asking Replica to just translate them for you.”

“Good luck, Yuma-kun! We’ll add some to Tamakoma this weekend together” Chika adds, and they both step out into the weakly illuminated streets.

Yuma watches them leave, and that night as he fiddles with the dials of the washing machine (洗濯機), he feels an old lightness seep in his heart. Not joy, not growth, but recovery. Where he was, perhaps, a -5 before, he’s a 0 now.

Not quite an amazing number, 0. He remembers being a 7 almost daily, back in the Neighbourhood. Right now, he feels the warmth of the proverbial Light at the End of the Tunnel, not yet seeing, but still anticipating, hoping. Yuma falls asleep with unquantifiable thoughts of tomorrow for the first time in countless days. Tomorrow, perhaps, he’d be a 0.5.

 

 

Two days later, he loses Replica.

x

The mission objective was achieved. Chika isn’t a trion cube and Osamu isn’t a pile of ashes to mourn.

Replica fell barely five minutes after Viza did at his own hands. He had barely gathered himself from his win, head still full of his father’s warning of _Run if you must_ and heart full of Osamu’s _I can’t run! Not even if I die here!_

He’d stood his ground, and Replica would have been proud of him for that. It had to count for something.

One week, exactly seven days later, Osamu wakes and sobs at the news of their shared loss. Yuma does not cry. He simply lies in bed at night, when he _thinks_ Replica might have started hovering too near, and puts his right thumb over where his pulse would have been on his left wrist. He waits, he hopes.  His phone lights up and he knows without looking it is Osamu.

 

In their ‘2makoma’ group chat, it writes:

[Osamu, 11.46pm] : Can we meet tmrw? Sry for txting so late.

And exactly thirty seconds after,

[Chika, 11.46pm] : No problem with me!

And two seconds later:

[Osamu, 11.46pm] : Kuga?

 

Yuma swipes a thumb across the screen and types an affirmative before clicking the power button immediately after.

Despite their best efforts, today Yuma is a -10.

However, he supposes, rational even as his trion heart aches for an old friend, no one can live their lives in the brackets of a modulus: eternally positive.

Tomorrow, perhaps, he’d be a -9.

X

Life goes on.

In Yuma’s mental ledger, he is:

  * A -6 after they lose to Ninomiya and Kageura squads
  * A 0 with their win against Katori and Kakizaki squads, and a tentative 1.5 with Hyuse joining their team
  * Then weeks later, a -6 again after Hyuse and himself got into a ‘physical altercation over a verbal slight made in Aftokratian’ (which was a nice way of saying that Hyuse learnt the hard way that mouthing off gets him nothing but a black eye, a chipped horn _and_ a bruised ego).



It would have been a -5 sort of day, on account of him winning, but Osamu and Chika looked so acutely disappointed, and Osamu gave him the silent treatment for three days after. Those were all -6 days.

Then it was a solid 5 with their first win as a  four-person team and then, a 6.5 when he discovered a shared hatred of Slifgrogan rhapsodies with Hyuse (“It was always playing in the army barracks” “They did the same in Aftokrator. I nearly pulled my horns off and stuffed them in my ears.”)

 

 

 Then the days become a little harder to rate.

Yuma has a theory why, and tests his hypothesis through spring blossoms and shared croquette lunches and trips to that dingy bookshop before he finally concludes that the reason, give or take a few significant figures, was: Osamu.

Which was strange enough, since Osamu was still distinctly himself, a fretting figure that hovered in place of Replica as he always did, making sure Yuma was taking care of himself. But some days Yuma  finds himself failing to recognize Kanji he swore he memorized the night before, and proceed to wipe the training room with his face (courtesy of Konami) and somehow, after a short study session with his captain, rate the frankly terrible day as a strong 6.

Those nights, he’d dream of green eyes. Not quite as brilliant as golden sunlit fields at the height of summer, but something deeper and clearer. Yuma wished he could name that green something other than “Mikumo Osamu”. He wakes with a feeling maybe his initial theory was wrong.

Maybe he’s the one that’s changed.

x

It comes to a peak the day they stay back to discuss battle strategies in the school library.

 “The Art of War” was a rare, expensive leather-bound beast, full of archaic phrases and hand-drawn illustrations. Right after lessons, they retrieved the bulky volume and sat in a secluded corner, shoulder to shoulder, as Osamu sketched out possible battle formations in his notebook. When Osamu commented, Yuma nodded appropriately, half-focused on the task at hand, half-distracted at his partner’s slender fingers and graceful penmanship.

The world was no bigger than the two desks pushed together up against the wall, no louder than Osamu’s soft reading and the small scratches of pencil against paper. In the lazy, late afternoon, the world was theirs.

Until it wasn’t.

The school bells jolt them out of their comfortable reverie at five, and they both scrambled to gather their belongings as the announcement shrilled on about the closing school gates.

“Here, Kuga, just give this to the student librarian on our way out” Osamu whispered as he handed the book to Yuma, busying himself with tucking their chairs back under the desks.

“Roger” Yuma replied easily as he strode to the counter, leather tome under his right arm, his left hand an inch from ringing the small desk bell before he caught a slight movement behind the frosted glass of the librarian’s office.

Behind Yuma, Osamu stilled as well. Both boys stood transfixed, mouths slightly ajar as they watched two blurry, yet distinctly human silhouettes, joined at the lips, move slowly and fervently against each other.

Later, Osamu would describe himself in those ten seconds as “aghast” and Yuma, “slightly confused but certainly intrigued”.

As the setting sun splayed amber across the room, the student librarian and their companion ceaselessly continued, unaware of their audience of two. Osamu gathered himself at the five-second mark and started whisper-shouting for Yuma, whose red eyes remained glued to the slow moving form of their lips, tender and soft, separating for a moment, then together again and holy _shit, could you **do** that with your tongu-_

“ _Kuga, for the love of -“_

“Hwuh-?”

“ _Who’s there?_ ”

In retrospect, that moment wasn’t exactly a stellar display of his razor-sharp reflexes. Yuma stood, dumbstruck in the small square of sunlight at his feet; hand still hovering over that tiny desk bell, and then Osamu was grabbing that very hand and hauling them both out the door and into the stretch of empty halls. Behind them, an incredibly old and expensive book thuds on the ground, ignored.

  
  


Down, down they go, footsteps ringing, resonating and reverberating on the steel steps, changing out into their outdoor shoes at record speed and running out of the school by a side gate, praying the two lovers didn’t peer out the window. Streetlights lining the small central market flicker on just as they arrive, the sky darkening and the Earth glowing with neon signboards and florescent bulbs.

Steadfastly avoiding what they’d just seen, they sat by a small fountain in the middle of the market, watching people leave their offices and bustle about the diners and train stations. Only when the air around them cools to a chill does Yuma register that Osamu had let go of his hand. But even as they make plans for training and part ways, Yuma trails behind.

He is still in the library, watching the syrup slow kisses in the setting sun. As he lies in bed, he’s breathlessly running, pulled by Osamu down the stretch of halls. He puts his right thumb over the spot Osamu had held him, feeling a phantom, insistent warmth and the rapid, unsteady 1, 2, 1, 2 of Osamu’s pulse in place of his. That night, he dreams of undulating shadows in warm sunlight, soft lips, and Mikumo Osamu Green.

x

Summer weather grips Mikado City in its sweaty hands. The tiny thermometer in Tamakoma HQ says it’s 34°C, and the display on the broken air-conditioner remains woefully blank. In the comfort of his unfeeling trion body, Yuma watches as Yotaro tries and fails to wrestle Raijinmaru for the seat in front of the standing fan.

“Alright Yotaro, you can come now,” Reiji calls from down the hall, stern expression comically contrasting with his banana yellow swimtrunks and the ring float in his left hand, printed with cartoon fishes. Yotaro bounds over, Raijinmaru trudging after him and stepping over his discarded clothes as Yotaro strips down to his swimtrunks and rushes out into the sun.

“Kuga, do you mind watching him while I go look for the sunscreen? Konami’s forgotten hers again”

Yuma thinks of black waves and darkness and nods anyway.

“Sure thing”

Nothing’s ever that bad in the sunlight.

He’s wrong of course, but the water is cool against his feet as he watches Raijinmaru and Yotaro paddle towards a rainbow beach ball bobbing tauntingly away from them. Hyuse sighs somewhere on his left and leaves the comfort of the shade to retrieve the ball for the boy.  

Yesterday, they had physical examinations at school.

It was the standard affair: height and weight measurements as well as simple running and jumping tests. It didn’t hurt when the card was returned to him with ‘141cm’ for the fourth year in a row. It didn’t hurt when he brushed past his classmates, all taller than he was, to retrieve his belongings.

On the way home, Osamu told him he grew a centimeter over the past six months.

Yuma spends the night at Tamakoma HQ.  Skin warmed by the sun. Tonight, Osamu is running ahead of him in his dreams, but he is not holding Yuma’s hand. He is leaping forward, faster and further in bounds of “one centimeter taller”. Even with his arm outstretched painfully to Osamu’s back, he is simply ten millimeters out of reach. He screams, but his captain does not turn or slow, and eventually, he becomes a speck in the distance and disappears.

 Yuma wakes up shaking. According to the Maps app on his phone, Osamu’s house is 1.283 kilometers from his current location. That’s one thousand, two hundred and eighty three meters, and exactly a hundred and twenty eight thousand, eight hundred “one centimeters” away.

Against his will, Yuma is alive and hopelessly in love.

x

“Thanks for coming with me today” Chika says for the fourth time in two hours. The ice in their plastic cups has melted into tepid water in the sweltering weather, and Chika gratefully sips what she can.

“Don’t worry about it Chika. I have to say though; I’d never pegged you as a horror fan”

Under the rim of her baseball cap, Chika beams.

“I get that a lot. I’m bad with jumpscares, so I prefer them in book form” she says, and peeks out at the line in front of them, leading to a large sign screaming “BOOK SIGNING TODAY -  FAMED AUTHOR ARRELL SPINE”

Yuma pokes his head out and estimates a hundred people in front of them.

“Jumpscares?”

“It’s easier if I just show you”

The afternoon passes easily with Chika showing Yuma snippets of horror films on her phone. The queue shortens as they go through the classics: “The Summoning”, “Pernicious” and one Yuma found particularly curious, “Neighbour VS Predator”. By the time the two feel the cool tendrils of air-conditioning from the bookstore, Chika is shortlisting her favourite horror flicks and promising to lend them to Yuma.

“Hey, is that him?” Yuma whispers, eyeing a balding man with sleepy eyes seated near the entrance of the store.

“Oh! My goodness, it _is!”_  Chika gushes, pulling out a thick book and flipping to the back, where a small portrait of the author was printed in black and white, resembling a cutout of an obituary.

“Well, I’m glad we made…it...” Yuma trails off as a familiar book catches his eye, distinct in its unembellished design. “Hey, Chika, have you heard of that series?” Yuma asks, striding over to the shelf and pulling out the volume, pensive.

“Hm?” Chika flicks her eyes over, but quickly returns them to the short line in front of her. “Yeah, the “Borderless Love” series, I think? Osamu reads it”

 _I knew it,_ Yuma thinks, flipping the book over to read the synopsis. It seemed unexceptional enough, the main character falls in love with her classmate and best friend, a bookish girl who’s blissfully unaware of her affections. There were similar genres back in the Neighbourhood; star-crossed lovers torn apart by war,  

“Man, you guys sure have strange tastes, I can’t see why Osamu would like something like this” Yuma laughs and moves to return the book to its display stand.

“Mm, it’s probably because he has someone he likes too?” Chika replies, distracted.

“Sir? Sir! You’re going to have to pay for that”

Yuma looks down at the crumpled novel in his hand and Chika shuffles forward in the queue.

x

“Alright, I’ll bite. What’s gotten into you lately, shrimpy?” Kageura stretches as he exits the training room.

Yuma doesn’t look at the large display screen as he trudges out. The PA system helpfully announces it anyway.

“MATCH END.  ROOM 304 KAGEURA VS ROOM 583 KUGA. 10 MATCHES. 8 TO 2. WINNER: KAGEURA”

Yuma sighs, and slumps into a nearby sofa.

“I dun’wanna talk about it” he mumbles.

“Whatever you say, tiny, but keep this up and the next rank battle between my team and yours is gonna be like stealing candy from a couple of babies” Kageura replies, sitting down next to Yuma.

“What’s this about stealing candy? I feel obligated to stop you, Kage” Murakami says good-naturedly, strolling over,

Kageura flips him off in reply, but explains anyway.

“Small fry here” He starts, jabbing a finger at the dejected Yuma, “has been absolute shit in training recently. It’s his business, but I was wonderin’ what’s biting him”

Murakami looks at Yuma for a few tense seconds before patting his head empathetically.

“Come on, Kage, don’t be so hard on someone with a broken heart. These things just happen, y’know?”

**“What?”**

“I’d understand Kageura being surprised, but I’m shocked you didn’t recognize it yourself, Kuga” Murakami smiled serenely, “I mean, no visible injuries, but pronounced lethargy and unsociability? You don’t have any symptoms of being sick either, I’ve seen it often enough.” Murakami nodded knowingly.

“That doesn’t make any sense! He could just be sad his favourite sushi store closed or something!”

“Not everyone is you, Kage,”

“What’s that supposed to mea-“

“So who is it, Kuga? We could help you out”

“Well, if had to guess,” Kitazoe piped up from behind, ambling over, “It’s his captain”

“Zoe? You’re late! An’ how the hell do you figure that?”

“Well, if you paid any attention at all,” Kitazoe huffed, “Nire was telling us how she heard from Yuka and Osano that Nasu squad was talking about how cute some border agents would look together, and Kuga just happened to get paired along with Mikumo, is all”

“Mikumo huh? Well, I’d never thought about it, but when you bring it up-“

“God, the both of you are unbelievable- Ema! We’re over here!”

“Captain.” Yuzuru greeted simply as he walked over. “Sniper practice ended late, sorry”

“S’fine, let’s just go before Kou and Zoe start picking names for Kuga’s grandkids”

“What?”

“Remember when Nire said that-“

“Zoe, for fu-“

“Language!” Kou interjected, slapping his hands over Yuzuru’s ears instinctively.

“-and Nasu squad was saying that Kuga and Mikumo would-“

“Guys, it’s nice that you care, but I just haven’t been sleeping well-“

“Boy, I don’t need a side effect to know that’s a lie-“

“and _besides_ , Osamu already has someone he likes.” Yuma finishes. The words taste sour and his tongue feels heavy.

“I heard the same from Amatori-san” Yuzuru says quietly.

“Ema, not you too-“

“ _Seriously?_  Who would’ve thought? Did she say who?”

“Zoe if you don’t cut that shi-“

“Kage” Murakami chides, hands already moving to shield Yuzuru’s ears

“Forget Amatori, I heard it from the horse’s mouth” Kikuchihara says around a bottle of milk tea.

“Is anyone here capable of minding their own damn businesses?”

“With this side effect? No way.” Kikuchihara replies easily

“C’mon Kiku, what’d you hear?”

“Oh my **god-“**

“Don’t tell Kaho I told you first, but I heard him and Amatori talking about it last Thursday” Kikuchihara takes a slow sip from his bottle. “Apparently, it’s someone his age, an Attacker in Border. Someone, and I quote, ‘strong and reliable’”

“Oh come on, is that it? Nothing about how the person looks?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. And I mean it, don’t tell Kaho anything”

“’Strong and reliable’? What, is Glasses crushing on an insurance plan? “

“Oh, so it’s okay for _you_ to gossip?”

“I wasn’t-“

“This is surprising; I didn’t think Mikumo had time for these frivolities”

“Oh, Kazama-san, do you want the rest of my milk tea?”

“Ew, you share-“

“Don’t mind if I do, Kiku”

“Oh, _gross”_

“Don’t be so rough on him, Kazama” Tachikawa smiled, “We’ve all been young before”

“I’m leaving, Kou, move aside-“

“You talk like you’re 80, Tachikawa”

“Kou, _move-“_

“All this fuss over nothing,” Jin tuts, bonchi crackers in hand. “It’ll all turn out fine” he smiled at Yuma’s quietly retreating figure. “My side effect tells me so”

“Spoiler alert” Tachikawa grumbles.

x

The night is moonless. An Attacker their age, someone Osamu trusts, someone strong and reliable. Yuma turns the information like a Rubik’s cube, twisting it this way and that, as though it’d all fall in to place. An Attacker Osamu’s age, someone Osamu trusts, someone strong and reliable. An Attacker Osamu’s age, someone Osamu trusts, someone Osamu finds strong and reliable. Osamu’s age, Osamu’s trust, someone Osamu likes. Osamu. Osamu. Osamu.

His head hurts. His heart hurts. Yuma flicks his phone on, but there aren’t any new messages. He’s restless in every sense of the word when he glances over and sees a ruined novel on his bedside table. Recycling day for paper’s not until Thursday, so Yuma shrugs and flips open his copy of “Borderless Love: Volume VII”.

Some of the earlier plot points and side characters don’t make sense to him, but it’s a simple story. Midori, the main character, is likable enough. She’s independent and kind. A little brusque maybe, but charmingly so. Her love interest, Sakura, is much more reserved, but surprisingly steely. They’d met in high school, and from what Yuma gathers, they were to graduate and head to University.

Honest as she was, Midori kept her feelings for Sakura a secret for fear of destroying their friendship. Likewise, Sakura was clearly fond of Midori, but knowing her friend’s rash nature, she refused to let her feelings be known, afraid that Midori would cast away a chance at her dream university to be with her.

Yuma finishes the book at daybreak and realizes that he didn’t need to pull out his dictionary even once.

As he goes to pull his blazer out the dryer, he spots a yellow square next to the bottle of detergent. Upon closer inspection, it is a post it note, taped to the dryer itself. He recognizes the smooth, looping script immediately. Yuma stands there, and as the sun inches up in the sky, he finds that he is smiling.

He is thinking of summer-green eyes and slender fingers. He is thinking of the future in terms of centimeters. He is thinking of warm hands and warm smiles, of how beautiful Osamu looks -- in the arms of someone else. Someone his age; someone strong and reliable.

Finally, Yuma is thinking of a dead man’s words. Yuma is thinking that this is a battle he cannot win, and as such, this is where he must run.

In the light of the sun, Yuma gives up on his first love.

x

“You told him **what?”** Osamu damn near screeches, “Chika, you promised!”

“I’m sorry Osamu-kun!” Chika replies, and in her defense, she does look appropriately apologetic, just not enough for Osamu to stop his frenzied pacing.

“Oh, god, that’s why he’s been avoiding me in school lately!”

“I never told him _who_ exactly you liked, I’m sure he’s just been busy-“

“I don’t think so, Chika,” Osamu sighs, flopping face down on his bed and sighing again. “I blew it” He mumbles into his pillow.

“Oh, Osamu-kun” Chika says, voice laced with concern, but her fingers are already flying across her phone screen.

 

Group Chat: Sniper BuddiesJ

[Chika, 11.25 am] : Ugh guys, no luck. Yuma-kun didn’t take the bait at all.

[Chika, 11.25 am] : Wasn’t I obvious enough?

[Ema-kun, 11.26 am] : I’m not so sure about that, Kuga looked pretty affected by it

[Izuho, 11.26 am] : Couldn’t you just give him another push?

[Chika, 11.26 am] : idk about that…Osamu-kun’s pretty stubborn about me helping….

 

Picking up a copy of “Borderless Love” (Volume IV) scattered across Osamu’s bedroom, Chika flicks idly through it, half-hoping a ghoul or zombie would pop up. Anything to stop Midori’s incessant whining about Sakura, or Sakura’s melodramatic soliloquies about how her love was “a flower doomed never to bloom, but to freeze eternally as a bud”. She laughed a little when Hiro, Sakura’s childhood friend echoed her thoughts exactly, rolling his eyes at his friend’s predicament. _It’s always the childhood friend that gets it the toughest, huh?_

“Wait”

“Hrmmmgh?” comes the muffled reply

“Osamu-kun, didn’t you say that “Borderless Love” was going to have an official book release this weekend for the last volume? Along with a short film or something?”

“…yes. I heard they secured a movie deal for the series, so they’ll be officially showing the trailer and cast there. You have to buy tickets thou-“

“Let’s go!”

“What?”

“Come on, you won’t feel any better just moping around. You even flaked on the Arrell Spine book-signing session the other day, so you owe me.”

Osamu weighed his options. He didn’t have the heart to tell Chika he chickened out on the book-signing when he heard that Yuma was going as well. And she did seem genuinely sorry about telling Yuma he had a crush on someone…

“You’re being really pushy about this, Chika”

“I just want you to feel better, Osamu-kun” and there it was, the Amatori Chika Look™. She’d brought the entire Tamakoma branch down with that within a week. Coupled with her Extremely-Concerned-Voice (patent pending), the probability of Osamu standing his ground was practically non-existent.

“Okay, I guess”

“I’ll book the tickets!”

x

 

[Yuma-kun, 2.00pm] : Borderless Love? Oh, Konami-senpai was crying over how someone posted spoilers online, I already know how it ends haha

[Chika, 2.00pm] : but there’s going to be a movie too!

[Yuma-kun, 2.00pm] : ?

[Chika, 2.00pm] : More like a preview, actually. You already watched all the movies I gave you right? Let’s try something new for a change!

[Yuma-kun, 2.00pm] : hm~ =3=

[Yuma-kun, 2.00pm] :  Sounds fun, I’m in

[Chika, 2.01pm] : I’ll book the tickets!

Across town, Chika breathes a sigh of relief, thankful that Yuma’s side effect didn’t seem to work too well over text.

Yuma tucks his phone into his pocket and peels off the last post-it in his house. He stacks the sticky pile of tape and paper on each other and puts them gently into the paper recycling bag, along with his torn copy of “Borderless Love”. Midori and Sakura do not live happily ever after. They simply split apart with the desperate promise of continuing to be friends.

x

Sunday was blessedly cool, the oppressive heat relenting across Mikado City. Unfortunately, every citizen in a forty kilometer radius seemed to realize this, and took the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors on the same day. Ticket in hand, Osamu slowly pushed his way to the fountain, where he and Chika agreed to meet.

Less than three meters away, Kuga was doing the same, with much less progress, however, due to

  1. his height
  2. his unfamiliar surroundings
  3. concerned grandmothers that kept stopping him to ask if he was lost and if he would like to find his guardians together.



 

Eventually, he was jostled in the right direction, and the crowds parted to reveal a tall metal structure in the middle of a small pool.  Around it, ribbons of water were shot into the air, catching the sunlight like a crystal, before plunging back down, shimmering all the while. His eyes followed the water, down, down, until his eyes fell to a boy seated at the edge of the pool.

 

Osamu.

 

The weather was so pleasant he could have mistaken it for Spring. So much has happened since then, he realizes belatedly. If you’d told him back then, a C-ranker that barely qualified, that in a matter of months he’d be a leader of a team contesting for a spot on the expedition force, he’d have given you a funny look and backed away slowly.

 

Wasn’t it a day just like this? Bright and beautiful, when a boy with snowy hair and stormy eyes entered his life and changed it forever.  Osamu scarcely remembered what it felt like to be armed with nothing but a pair of pliers and his determination, crawling into a disaster zone in hopes of persuading Border to enlist him. The shooting stars he used to wish on seem so close now.

 

A sudden crash of sadness chokes him then. They don’t have much time left. He’d said it to himself dozens of times, even as he marks the days tangibly in croquettes, assessment books and post-it notes, he can’t keep it all. He can’t bottle the warm sunlight or the exhilaration he felt, pulling Yuma away from the library. Even as Yuma is beside him, Osamu is thinking of his future-self, dragging a hand across faded photographs. They don’t have the future.

 

And yet,

Osamu is sure that decades down the road, when he thinks of _strength,_ he’ll still see unblinking red eyes that cannot help but face the truth in all they see. When he thinks of _trust_ , he’ll hear a clear resounding voice calling out his name, pushing him forward. And when he thinks of love, he thinks, unerringly, of –

 

A striking face that emerges from the faceless crowd.

 

 

Kuga.

 

 

Neither of them move, staring at each other, exactly one and a half meters apart.

 

Then, their phones beep simultaneously, and their stares are broken. The text message they receive reads:

 

[Chika, 1.35pm] : I’m sorry, I’m feeling a little under the weather….

 

x

They make their way to the theatre in silence, fumbling to their seats in the pitch dark, and then, they simply wait. Yuma tries to remember the merits of running from an impossible battle. Osamu tries to remember how to breathe. The projector flicks on and starts promoting the final volume of a book Yuma already knows the end to; a conclusion Osamu is anxious to find out.

The actresses appear on screen and recite their lines. Yuma hears muffled whispering in the theater.

_“Oh, they chose that newbie actress after all?”_

_“Hey, they changed the script-“_

_“Man, didn’t you open the link I sent you?”_

When “Sakura” appears on screen, the first thing Yuma notices are her brilliant green eyes,  so Yuma just closes his eyes, and hopes Osamu does not notice.

 

 

It’s over quicker than he expected.

 

The crowd shuffles out the exit, towards the exhibition, where copies of the last volume are lined up against the shelves. The projector flickers off, and the whirring of the air-conditioning dies out. Neither made a move to leave, as though beyond the darkness of the cinema lay a certain future they both did not want.

“You know, someone leaked the ending of the last book” Yuma hears from his right, a controlled, steady voice.

“Ah, I saw those.” Yuma replies, and hopes his voice sounded just as steady.

“They don’t, ah-“

“They don’t end up-’”

“-together, yeah”

It’s silent again, save for the chattering they can barely hear through the thick, soundproof doors of the cinema.

“Kuga,” He hears, and

“Kuga, I don’t-“and then

“Kuga, I don’t want us to end up like them” and finally

“Kuga I love-“

And Yuma closes that one centimeter between them, heart burning with the words _I WON’T RUN EVEN IF I’LL LOSEI WON’T RUN I WON’T RUN I. WON’T. RUN_ and Osamu’s pulse is in his hand, warm and quick and alive.

  
  


 

When they leave, the sun is still hanging high in the sky. Yuma sees summer in Osamu’s eyes.

X

“Yuma, you’ll never believe it! The author leaked those “spoilers” herself to throw us all off! They _do_ get a happy ending after all!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you celestial-cookie on tumblr for the joy that is Autistic!Yuma!
> 
> Better quality pics over at tanjerrine.tumblr.com !
> 
> 9Feb17' Update: FANART! yumakuga.tumblr.com/post/156933071095/


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